MIT Names Lily Tsai Director of Concourse First-Year Program
Tsai, the Ford Professor of Political Science, succeeds historian Anne McCants, who led the 50-student learning community for 14 years.
By Boston Business Watch News Desk
· 1 min read
Lily Tsai, the Ford Professor of Political Science at MIT, has been named faculty director of Concourse, the Institute's first-year learning community, according to MIT News. She succeeds Anne McCants, the Ann F. Friedlaender Professor of History, who stepped down after 14 years leading the program.
Concourse was founded in 1970 to bring humanities, engineering and science faculty together on a shared curriculum. It accepts 50 first-year students each year, who take General Institute Requirement courses in math and science alongside humanities readings of Plato, Homer, Aristotle, Wordsworth and Coleridge. The program has its own classroom, seminar room, lounge and kitchen in Building 16, and runs a weekly Friday advising seminar over lunch. Since 2023 it has held debates with the MIT Civil Discourse Project.
Tsai takes over as MIT widens ties between its School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences and other fields through the Compass Initiative, which she co-leads, the MIT Human Insight Collaborative, and shared faculty appointments in the MIT Schwarzman College of Computing.
"The ethos of Concourse is thrilling to me," Tsai said, adding that the program prepares students to be engineers and scientists as well as citizens and leaders.
Assistant Director Sasha Rickard, a program alumna, said students often cite Concourse as a reason they chose MIT.
This story was first reported by MIT News.
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